Will he be in Parliament to vote today or is it another at the Royal Ascot for Farage?
Nigel Farage was a no-show in Parliament again yesterday.
Dressed in a tailcoat and top hat, the Reform UK leader was pictured smiling between three security guards as he attended the Royal Ascot.
The privately educated former stockbroker took a day off doing the job he was elected to do, missing parliamentary business to do so.
But this isn’t the first time he’s been awol this week. On Tuesday, he missed multiple votes relating to abolishing the prosecution of women for terminating their pregnancy.
This is despite Farage having previously been vocal on the issue, stating that he disagrees with the current 24-week limit on abortions and believes it should be reduced.
Farage also missed votes on the Crime and Policing Bill on Wednesday, but appeared in the Chamber briefly to say that Labour should scrap HS2 entirely. However, he was roasted by the transport secretary Heidi Alexander, who pointed out billions have already been spent on the rail project.
“We are not going to be a country that spends over £30bn on rail infrastructure but then never sees a train running on it,” Alexander said, “we’ve already seen too much waste.”
Since the new Parliament was formed on 9 July last year, the MP for Clacton has shown up for 89 votes out of 244 – a voting attendance rate of just 36.5%.
During an interview with Sky News’ Ali Fortescue last November, Farage became visibly rattled when asked whether it was fair to say he hadn’t been spending much time in Clacton.
Asked how many times he’d been to Clacton, he snapped: “I’ve just exchanged contracts on a house and I’ll be living there, is that good enough?”. When asked about constituency surgeries, he said “done loads of them, lots of them, online consultations, telephone calls.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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